Now

Gary’s Factory

Somewhere outside Chicago

Anya watched Gary tap buttons across multiple screens. She’d had plenty of time to get used to her powers since her respec, as well as the new armor, weapons, and the simplified V-200 that Gary had made for her. The V-200 was so simple that she hadn’t needed to spend points on learning to fly it. A few hours a day with a simple simulator program Gary had made was enough to show her the ropes. The integrated autopilot took care of the more complicated systems and maneuvers. It was more complicated than a car, but not by much.

Now the old man studied her scans and multiple squiggly lines that fluctuated and wriggled across his displays. It didn’t make any sense to Anya, but Gary grunted meaningfully and whacked one of his drones on its metal head and pointed at a screen nearby.

“Record that, compare it to the previous scans,” he said.

“Are Anya’s scans good?” Pan asked.

“They’re fine. A little different, a lot stronger,” Gary said then looked at Anya. “Do you have that thing you got off the companion store on you?”

“His name is Reggie, and no, he’s in his home in the V-200 having a nap. We were practicing a lot yesterday and he’s been tuckered out,” Anya said. “You wanna scan him too?”

“Is he magic?”

“He’s an elemental, sort of. Not aetheric, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“That aether stuff plays hell with the scanners. Keeps shifting around. But yeah, I’d like to scan the little guy if you don’t mind,” Gary said.

“I’ll go get him. How long will it take you to have the decoy device ready?” Anya asked as she emerged from the tube.

“It’ll take me a couple days to have a prototype ready. Maybe more,” Gary replied as he continued to squint at his multiple displays.

“Whoa,” Pan said.

Anya nodded at the pangolin and raised her eyebrows. At Gary’s current level, and with his factory at hand, he could make a small army of battle-droids in a few days. Anya knew because he had. They were far superior to anything he’d slapped together prior to the factory’s creation, and exponentially stronger than the junkbots China had thrown at them. He made her V-200 in a matter of hours, and had drafted the design for the DragonDrones while he had a bagel and coffee.

For him to say that a single device wouldn’t be finished for days was a surprise.

“That long?” she asked. Gary quirked the edge of his mouth at her which made his thick gray mustache twitch.

“Spoiled already?” he asked, not unkindly.

“It’s not like that. It’s just that you got this huge place running in a matter of weeks. Is the prototype some big thing?”

“No, I’m hoping it won’t be much bigger than the scrambler bands. Size isn’t the issue. The issue is trying to duplicate a signal that I’m still not fully understanding. And since I want to duplicate a gathering of hosts, I’ll need to duplicate multiple signals. That’s why I’m just scanning you first. If this works, I can just get different hosts in here, scan them, copy their signal, and add it to the decoy. Then throw it in a field somewhere and boom, instant decoy crowd of hosts.”

“And then we just nuke the area with something like the cannon in your truck,” Anya said. “Or one of Zoya’s Czar Bombas.”

Zoya, the explosion-happy Russian woman Anya had met in Beijing, had been doing not much of anything except trying to get her self-made explosions as big as she could. She’d even named their various sizes, like special attacks. Her “Czar Bomba,” was named after Russia’s biggest nuclear weapons, though her attack did far more damage, according to her. Thankfully without the nuclear fallout though.

“Something like that, yeah,” Gary said. “Try to pick off the strongest aliens and gang up on any survivors.”

Anya, Pan, Gary, and Felix all left the lab and headed back toward the hangar.

“Are we gonna win?” Pan asked as they approached the V-200.

“We’re sure gonna try,” Gary said. “If this doesn’t work, we’ll figure something else out.”

“It’ll be okay Pan,” Anya reassured him as she opened up the V-200 and reached into a storage compartment under the dashboard. She’d left Reggie behind because she knew he wanted to rest, didn’t know how having him on her person would affect Gary’s scanners, and she knew leaving him a short walk away in Gary’s factory would be safe.

She withdrew a crude crystalline sculpture of a serpent with wings that glowed a dull orange.

“You met this thing yet Pan?” Gary asked as Anya withdrew the sculpture.

“Yeah! He’s not very smart but I like him!” Pan replied.

“He’s an elemental. He’s not clever like you,” Anya said and smirked. The companions menu didn’t deal in anything truly sapient. Rudimentary AIs, androids, robots, golems, animals, basic undead, and elementals filled the sub-menu, but nothing that had a fully self-aware, reasoning intellect. Reggie’s level of intelligence was on par with a very smart dog, or maybe a chimp.

“Heya, wake up Reg,” Anya said to the crystalline sculpture in her hand. It was the summoning stone that the menu had given her when she’d purchased Reggie for a whopping 575,000 RAC. Her companion token from her Phoenix Knight class mitigated a fraction of the cost, but not much. A magical companion was one of the few things Gary couldn’t make, and it was worth the money to have her new partner.

Gary’s glasses adjusted automatically to the bright light that emitted from the sculpture, darkening to protect his eyes as Reggie emerged.

Reggie was an eight-foot-long serpent covered in shimmering feathers and sporting a pair of elegant wings on his upper back. His feathers, and the scales beneath, were rippling shades of a southwestern sunset that shifted whenever he moved. A powerful gust of wind accompanied his arrival, along with a brief flash of light and a flare of flames that Anya sucked up.

Anya felt Reggie’s mind touch hers, a side-effect of the menu classifying her as his “summoner,” and one that allowed very basic communication. Colors filled Anya’s mind: soft gold, warm orange, and gentle waves of pale green. Reggie was feeling pretty relaxed and happy to see her. He draped himself around her neck and shoulders like a living scarf and fluttered his wings.

“That’s quite a creature,” Gary said. Reggie rose his head and the colors in Anya’s mind spiked with a series of rounded purple peaks. Reggie stared straight at Gary, alert, curious, but unsure. The feathered plumes around his neck flared out in a warning display.

“It’s okay, Reg,” Anya said and stroked the soft feathered ruff under Reggie’s chin.

“Uh, is he gonna torch me or something if I scan him?” Gary asked as he slowly pulled out a pocket-sized device.

“No,” Anya said to the elemental. “This is Gary. He’s a friend, like Pan.”

Reggie didn’t understand the words, but he understood emotions and tone. He relaxed his feathers and posture, but continued to watch Gary closely.

“So what is he?” Gary asked as he waved the scanner over Reggie.

“Something called a Yjana, according to the menu. A greater elemental of wind and fire. He doesn’t look like much now, but he can get pretty big depending on how much light and heat he’s exposed to. He’s incredibly quick, his scales are almost as durable as Pan’s before he powers up, and he can create gale-force winds even at his current size. His ability to make or attack with fire is pretty good as well, but I mostly got him because he won’t get hurt by my fire, and he can handle an element I can’t. And he can make for a good decoy with his speed. I’ve got my own protection covered with Light Dominion, the armor you gave me, and all the charms and runes I got off the RAC store, so he doesn’t need to be big and tough like Chandrali. And he has a really cute nose!”

Anya pointed at the end of Reggie’s snout, which had a definite upward turn.

“Uh-huh,” Gary said and studied the readouts.

“Anything interesting?” Anya asked.

“Some similarities to your Sun’s Heart,” Gary said. “Not aetheric. Not entirely natural either, but consistent. His scales are doing a damn fine job of holding all that heat inside of him. Enough BTUs to cook an entire ranch of cattle in a split second. And this is his ‘small’ form?”

“Yeah. I didn’t wanna freak the Air Force guys out too much, so I didn’t go all out with him, but he gets pretty big,” Anya said. She scratched Reggie behind his feathered neck frill and the serpent closed its eyes and tilted to the side to allow her better access. Her mind filled with gentle blues and greens as Reggie relaxed.

She’d seen the elemental create a tornado on par with the one made by the fan alien in Manhattan. That was partially why she had chosen the Yjana. She’d been hesitant to unleash too much fire during the fight with the fan. It would have been too easy for the winds to magnify the flames and spread them around. Of course, if she’d been able to control that wind, then that would be another matter.

But she didn’t want to add another Dominion to her skillset and spread herself thin. That was when Felix had suggested the Yjana: quick, nimble, clever, a capacity for growth, and in command of an element she didn’t possess. The fact that it fed off two of the elements she did command made it a no-brainer for her.

“Interesting,” Gary said and put his scanner away. “I’d like to get him in the big scanner sometime, but it can wait. I’ll be running your scans with the prototype decoy’s for a while and don’t want to waste a second.”

“Okay, so I’ll be back in a couple days?” Anya asked.

“I’ll call you when it’s done,” Gary said. His voice softened a little as he added, “But if you just wanna swing by and tell me how the USAIF is screwing things up, that’ll be fine too.”

“Maybe I’ll do that,” Anya said.

“Can I come and visit too?” Pan asked.

“Anytime little buddy,” Gary said and then glanced up at Anya. “Y’know, there is something you might consider doing if the feds don’t have you too busy. Something you mentioned last time you were here. You told your mom yet?”

Anya froze.

She hadn’t.

MacDougal had given her and everybody else working directly with the USAIF clearance to tell their family about the basics of their position if they wished. Families of hosts would be offered protection and secure housing if needed or requested by the hosts themselves. Anya had requested her mom and sister be kept safe, but in secret. A security detail had been posted to them at all times, but out of sight in surveillance vans or disguised as civilians.

Gary wasn’t working directly under the USAIF, and even if he had been, didn’t have any family to tell. Neither did Immonen, as far as she knew, and he was in some kind of international agreement with the US and Finland and the EU. Samaira had told her family before going to Alaska, but hadn’t spoken much about it to Anya except to say that they were “Proud but worried and working through it.” The psychic gal from North Dakota, who Anya had only briefly met, was living on a base in Texas with her family.

But Anya still had not spoken to her mother. Not since the night the menu had struck her. It had been a month. She’d gotten texts from her mother since then, but nothing beyond “Call me,” or “Where are you?”

Anya had sent short responses back, just to alleviate the guilt. A few messages along the lines of “I’m fine, just busy, talk later,” and nothing else.

Her sister had started to text her about her absence as well. Normally her sister kept her nose out of Anya’s disagreements with their mother, but now she was not-so-subtly texting her about calling or maybe even coming to visit.

Gary shrugged when Anya didn’t answer for several seconds.

“Hey, it’s none of my business. I was just curious,” he said.

“No, it’s fine,” Anya said. “I should…probably go see her.”

“I know I said I have work here but if you wanted somebody to come with you…” Gary trailed off.

“That’s nice but I won’t subject you to this. I’m dropping Pan off outside DC after this, meeting Tori, and then I’ll just go get it out of the way. I’ve avoided it as long as I can.”

Gary raised his eyebrows at her but said nothing.

“I can come too!” Pan said. Anya smiled at him and patted Pan on the head.

“I’ll be okay. This is just silly human stuff,” Anya said. Reggie sensed her sudden discomfort and wrapped his tail around her upper arm and gave it a soft squeeze.

“Don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I’m sorry I brought it up,” Gary said. Anya shook her head.

“It’s fine. I’m being stupid about it. She deserves to know, and I have today off, aside from this and dropping Pan. Speaking of, we should get going, huh Pan?”

“Okaaaaaay,” Pan sighed as he waddled into the V-200. “Bye Gary! See you again soon!”

“Bye Pan,” Gary waved then looked at Anya. “If uh, you wanna swing back by here after you visit your mom, feel free. I don’t really sleep much anymore, so any time is fine.”

“You still eat though, right? It’s been awhile since I had one of those pretzel burgers from the city.”

“Whenever you want one, kiddo. My treat,” Gary said with a smile. Anya gave him a wave as she got into the V-200. Reggie slid off her shoulders and disappeared back into his summoning crystal, which Anya pocketed.

The smaller hangar entrance tunnel opened as Anya started the V-200, and she saw Gary waving at her again in the rear-view mirror as she slowly lifted off and entered the exit tunnel.

“Will anybody be at DC to meet me?” Pan asked.

“Tori will,” Anya replied. She didn’t want to expose Pan or Gary to her mother. But Tori knew about her well enough. Maybe if she wasn’t too busy she could be convinced to come along for the ride. Anya took a breath, pushed the guidance discs forward and the V-200 shot through the magnetic tunnel and into the blue sky beyond.